Who’s Abroad!

This a new and exciting trip for Keystone students.  22 students will be going to Puerto Rico to study global health, sociology of diversity, and Spanish 102 beginning Tuesday, May 22nd.  We will be blogging every couple of days and will share pictures on the Education Abroad Facebook page.  The group will be led by Dorothy Anthony, Joyce Avila, Susan Constantine and Shirley

Eric is half way through is Semester at Sea trip.  Today he is India.  His blog has amazing pictures and stories.  Check it out!  The link is:  http://morethanjustapage.wordpress.com/.

Eric will be away the spring semester on a voyage with Semester at Sea!  Keep up with him on his blog.  Here is the link!

http://morethanjustapage.wordpress.com/

I decided to send in an entry.  Why don’t you?  The link with the information is http://www.goabroad.com/blog/2011/11/15/goabroad-giveaway-goabroad/.  Below is my story.  Let me know what you think?

 “Why I go Abroad”

 Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, I had never traveled farther than New York or even met someone from another country.  I was fortunate to get a job at a college working with international students. It was so strange for me to meet students who could not speak a word of English coming from places that I could never even dream of.   I was fascinated and the students won my heart from the very beginning.  I wanted to learn everything about them and their countries.

 The opportunity came for me to take a trip to Brazil with the Rotary.  I had never been on an airplane, but I told myself that students flew to Pennsylvania every semester so I was not going to be afraid.   I spent a month in Brazil and was hooked!  I finally understood the international students’ desire for travel and the experience of other cultures.  Soon after that other opportunities came for me to travel to Japan, Jamaica, Thailand, and Costa Rica. This semester, I will assist faculty taking a group of students to Puerto Rico.  The thought of learning another language never crossed my mind until students were attending college here from Latin American countries. This encouraged me to take Spanish classes.  Speaking is still difficult for me, but the excitement of the trip to Puerto Rico has sparked me digging out my Spanish CDs and practicing again.
 

After many years, I can personally share my experiences with international students and with our students interested in studying abroad.  Sometimes I get so excited when a student is traveling to a new place that I have the desire to sneak along in her suitcase.
 

Shirley Michaels

I went to Aiya Napa this weekend. It was so beautiful and I am so glad we went. The hotel had this really awesome pool and the beach was right behind it. We went to the beach the first day. The water was so clear and it was warmer than the pool was.

The next day we rented bikes and took a 30 minute bike ride to the sea caves. It was so beautiful and I am so happy we went. The water was turquoise. We climbed down the rocks and went swimming in the beautiful water. It was even warmer than the beach. It was amazing. I loved it so much. We took pictures in the cave. People were cliff jumping. It was so high up; it made us nervous. All of us loved the caves and were so happy we took the time to go. I was so excited to go and I wasn’t disappointed. We split up and some of them got a ride back to the hotel, while a couple of us rode our bikes into this little town. The bikes were so annoying because they wouldn’t go up the hills. We had to walk them up. Then, we eventually rode back to the hotel. It was so nice and there was nice scenery.  Later, we all went out to eat and went out that night.

The next day we went to the beach and laid out. We went out swimming and some people made an epic sand castle. Then we checked out and put our bags in the luggage room. Then, went back to the beach and walked to these cliffs. Not as amazing as the sea caves but pretty cool. Some of us started to cliff jump. I did it once; it was pretty fun. It was scary standing there, you had to just do it and it was really quite fun. Then, we went and got changed and walked somewhere to get lunch along the beach. The food wasn’t so great but we had a fun time. We all walked to the hotel and some of us got some ice cream. Then, we got to the hotel and got on the bus to come back to Nicosia. The bus driver started yelling at us in Greek and we were just like, “um, we don’t understand you,” but he kept yelling. We just started saying, “Get Thanos” the GLS person who came with us. It was funny, because the night before, the taxi driver who took us home freaked out on us and started yelling at us. That’s a whole other story though.

I slept on the bus and all of a sudden we were at our apartments.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend and I loved Aiya Napa!

I found these yoga classes on facebook. I might do them if my schedule works out. The instructor is going to send me information on it. I hope it works out. I’m kind of getting really excited. It’s call Prana Yoga Shala and the first class is free!

It would be so awesome if it worked out. Let you all know.

I’m going to Aiya Napa this weekend. I am so excited. I will let you know about it after I go.

Hope everything is good at home. Keep you posted.

It rained two nights ago and yesterday. So it cooled down. It was down to 70 degrees and I was cold! I am going to die in December when I get home!

It’s been great. Classes are going well and I am still having fun!

My parents are coming to visit in November. I’m soooo excited, weird I know. I don’t ever get THAT excited for them to visit me at Keystone, but I am THAT excited. I think it’s because I want to be like, this is what it’s like… see it’s soooo safe… and show them what I’ve seen, where I’ve been! Stuff like that!
Well, keep you all updated. That’s all for now! Sorry about the short post but wanted to let you know something back home!

So, I have had over a week of classes. A lot of the classes I planned on taking got cancelled. Like the one that would have transferred back as Modern Post Modern. So, that sucks. I couldn’t figure out what else to take. So, here we go…
The class I made the most friends is “Art and Mathematics.” I guess that makes sense though. They are really nice and the first class, during break, this girl bought me a cookie. I met more people in the class today. It’s going to be a tough class because it’s something like a video-making class and I have never done anything like that, never worked with any of those kinds of programs. I am definitely keeping the class though, because the people are so nice and as I said, I made the most friends in that class.

Greek class is kind of a tough class. The teacher doesn’t explain things that well. She speaks Greek for the majority of the class, rarely English. It is definitely easier now than the first class was. She just started speaking Greek as soon as she came in, the first class. I met a couple people in that class and someone from my program joined in on this Tuesday, so that’s cool. We don’t take any breaks in Greek though (It’s only and hour and a half long) so, I don’t get to talk to them as much as I get to talk to the Art and Math people.

Greek Art, a history class, is kind of tough because there is a lot of mythical stories I have to learn. Also, some of the question the teacher asks are confusing. He’ll ask a question and no one will no the answer he is looking for.  They will say a correct answer but he will just say, “yes, but not what I’m looking for.” It seems really interesting though. I just have to look up a lot of those Greek Myths.

Sociology, only had one class so far. It seems cool; the teacher seems nice. I feel like it maybe one of my easier classes. Watch it be the hardest, but for now, it feels like it will be the easier of the four.

I do have a fifth class but it’s only Pilates. I haven’t technically done it yet though. First of all, they changed the time and day and didn’t tell us, so we missed it the first week. This week I went at 4 like they told me and it actually starts at 3:30. So I sat and watched the last half hour. I got to meet the teacher though; he seems nice.

Well that’s all my classes and I think it’s definite. I have until the end of this week to change (add/drop) the classes.

- Megan

I’m back home, in Cyprus. After traveling to Greece, Italy and Spain it is nice to come back to Cyprus.

Okay, so I left off in Rome… 

We went to the Vatican city, as I said we would. It was amazing. I saw the museum and the Sistine Chapel. The tour guide pointed out where the Pope lived and what windows. We saw the Basilica. It was all quite amazing, then we broke off and did our own thing. We did that a lot. We’d have tours and then just go off by ourselves to discover the cities. A group of us saw many churches when we went our separate ways. We also saw these arches and took this trolley thing back to the metro to our hotel.

(We went to Pisa for a couple hours to take pictures and had lunch there.)

We also went to Florence and explore the city of Florence. We shopped a lot there, many of my friends spent of bulk of their money in Florence. In Florence before we even got off the bus, the bus driver took us to see a panoramic view of the city and we saw an exact replica of the statue of David. It was quite amazing. The next day, we walked to the Uffizi Museum and took a tour with a tour guide there. Again, we had free time afterwards to explore, eat, shop, do whatever we felt like doing.

The next day, we went to Venice. In Venice, we walked around, took a gondola ride, and ate. The gondola ride was pretty cool. Sadly, one of our program coordinators got sick and had to get a room. The other one just walked around and shopped, that one loves to shop. Actually, I was one of the only ones who did not get a cold traveling. Everyone slowly got sick. Hopefully I won’t get sick now.

Next, we went to Barcelona. Barcelona was fun. We took a tour in the afternoon. We didn’t arrive until 12:30 am. )We did not spend a night in Venice.) We walked around in the morning and saw this church that had gothic, modern, and futuristic styles. The architect was Gaudi (sp?). We started walking to the beach but we had a tour at 4 and wanted to eat. So, two went to the beach. The rest of us found this amazing restaurant that was cheap and had the most amazing food. Then, we met up with the Global Learning Semester kids and their coordinator who were studying in Barcelona for the tour. They had been there a month already so they knew places and we hung out with them after the tour. We shopped in Barcelona as well. I did not buy much (what a surprise) but others spent a lot of money. There was a market where everything was 1 euro and it added up for some. The market was before the tour. We went to more expensive shops after the tour. I didn’t get anything (big surprise!).

We spent all today traveling to get back to Cyprus. Today was the only day our flights got cancelled. I believe the Athen’s airport was on strike (of course we’d fly through Athens), we flew there to get to Cyprus. We only had a two hour layover there, so we were worried we weren’t going to make it but the plane in Athen left a little late too.

All in all, my travel time was amazing. I loved the food, especially in Greece and Spain. I had more expectations for Italy but I still loved it. After being in all those countries I am really happy I chose Cyprus and get to go back to it. I love all the places I went and would go back in a heartbeat but Cyprus just feels like home. People are so nice here. 

Well, that’s it for now. Classes start tomorrow. I am very excited. Let you know how all that goes.

-  Megan